Obama has huge lead over McCain -- in cyberspace

If the US presidential election was being held in cyberspace, Barack Obama would win in a landslide. The Democratic candidate has raised tens of millions of dollars more than Republican John McCain online and proven much more savvy overall at harnessing the power of the Internet, according to political and Web analysts.

Not surprising, perhaps, for a 47-year-old who is facing a 72-year-old who has admitted he does not use a computer and is seeking to become the oldest man ever elected to a first term in the White House.

"The real Obama story is that he's using the Internet as a complete campaign strategy, not just to raise money, but to raise a volunteer organization," said Michael Malbin, executive director of the Campaign Finance Institute.

"It's the social networking, the mybarackobama.com site where people can find each other," said Malbin of the Washington-based non-partisan institute.

"No other candidate has ever integrated the full picture the way he has, that's what's really new about his campaign."

Julie Germany, director of the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet at George Washington University, said the Obama campaign "has been very effective by being highly experimental and by adapting Web technologies.

"They have used the Internet to collect information about people -- your email, your zip code, who your friends are, what causes you care about," she said.

Besides the all-important fund-raising and get-out-the-vote categories, Obama leads McCain in virtually every conceivable "e-campaign" metric, one month away from the November 4 vote.

The Illinois senator has more than 1.9 million supporters on Facebook.com compared to the Arizona senator's 550,000 while over on rival social network MySpace.com, Obama has some 650,000 friends to McCain's 150,000.

A MySpace survey of its users has Obama supporters outnumbering those of McCain in 45 states. McCain is more popular among MySpace users in just one state -- Mississippi -- while the other four are undecided.

More than 91,000 "followers" have registered to receive updates from Obama on Twitter, the popular micro-blogging service, while just 2,100 people get the short messages known as "tweets" about McCain.

Both candidates have set up their own channels on videosharing site YouTube (youtube.com/barackobama and youtube.com/johnmccain). But there again Obama is well ahead of McCain with 16.6 million video views to McCain's 1.6 million.

Under the apt title of "Obama Everywhere," the Democrat's website lists no less than 16 separate Web destinations where visitors can click for information about the man who would become America's first African-American president.

Besides MyBarackObama.com, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and YouTube, they include photosharing site Flickr, where users can browse to their heart's contect through more than 2,100 pages of Obama-related pictures.

For those who "digg" Obama, articles about the candidate can be sent to the popular news-sharing site Digg.com at digg.com/users/ObamaforAmerica.

African-Americans (blackplanet.com), Gays and Lesbians (glee.com), Latinos (migente.com) and Asian-Americans (asianave.com) all have official Obama pages on social networks catering to the groups.

In its latest move, the Obama campaign this week launched an application for the Apple iPhone called Obama 'O8 which helps users track down the local Obama headquarters or find local campaign events.

In addition to social networking and YouTube, the candidates have also embraced the blogosphere like never before issuing hundreds of credentials to bloggers to attend the Republican and Democratic conventions.

"They've both tried to cater to the blogs and bring them in more than their predecessors," said Germany, noting that the Obama campaign was holding weekly calls with influential Democratic bloggers.

Aaron Smith, a research specialist at the Pew Internet and American Life Project, warned however that while Obama appears to have considerably more support online, that tends to "disproportionately" reflect younger voters -- what he called the "college-educated, dialed-in."

"He's really built his campaign among grass-roots support online," he said, and "naturally his supporters would be expected to be more active online."

Germany also sounded a cautionary note about the limits of cyberspace.

"A lot of people get caught up and lose sight that all of these gadgets and widgets are useful only if they contribute to the campaign's overall strategy -- which is to get voters out on election day," she said.

© 2008 AFP

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